


mournsong

by argentia



Series: battleborne [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Bittersweet Ending, Black Paladin Lance (Voltron), Blue Paladin Allura (Voltron), Character Development, Character Study, Cuban Lance (Voltron), Fix-It, Gay Keith (Voltron), Gen, Light Angst, Post-Season/Series 04, Trans Female Pidge | Katie Holt, Worldbuilding, bisexual allura, how is that not a tag boys, she|her pronouns for pidge|katie holt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-23 19:32:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13794705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/argentia/pseuds/argentia
Summary: “Oh, my bright-eyed Sun and Stars,” Mama said, “My little Allura, someday this crown will mark you as the Great Celestial, leader of our people.”“May Allyar forbid it be her warhelm,” Papa muttered.allura-centric fic. why doesn't she call herself Queen?





	mournsong

**Author's Note:**

> **WARNING: I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THAT YOU READ {SAPPHIRE|RUBY|OBSIDIAN} BEFORE THIS FIC. SEVERAL CHARACTERS’ DEVELOPMENT WILL SEEM UNEARNED IF YOU DO NOT, MAINLY LANCE’S. PLOT POINTS AND CERTAIN REFERENCES WILL NOT MAKE SENSE IF YOU DO NOT.**
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>  _Altean Pantheon_  
>  Iyna- goddess of war  
> (Iyatis) - goddess of love  
> Easna- goddess of water (superstition)  
> Allyar (1)- goddess of lifeforce, magic (culturally significant)  
> Welna(3)- goddess of galaxy and sky, voyage (superstition)  
> Yivana- goddess of forest/nature (superstition)  
> Ysna- goddess of earth (superstition)  
> Hiona-goddess of fire (superstition)  
> Allna - goddess of night and moon (superstition)  
> Nilyar(4)-goddess of death (culturally significant)  
> Eollna(2) -goddess of sun and day (superstition)  
> Kigga-goddess of the harvest  
> Luirna-goddess of the arts  
> Cexzna-infamous goddess, instated into worship by the drunkard King Bolggery, who was promptly overturned. Her name is synonymous with embarrassment and shame, but using as an insult is generally in a teasing, friendly tone.
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> **WARNING: I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THAT YOU READ {SAPPHIRE|RUBY|OBSIDIAN} BEFORE THIS FIC. SEVERAL CHARACTERS’ DEVELOPMENT WILL SEEM UNEARNED IF YOU DO NOT, MAINLY LANCE’S. PLOT POINTS AND CERTAIN REFERENCES WON’T MAKE SENSE IF YOU DO NOT.**

The Altean goddess of war had frightened Allura to no end as a child. 

Every depiction of Iyna she had seen was bloodthirsty and ferocious. The tapestries that hung in Iyna’s shrine terrorized her dreams until she was a teenager, their gilded fabric detailing furious eyes and blood-spattered greatskirts, windblown silver tresses, great claymores and the dull armor of fallen soldiers, and smoke and death and fire, curling in terrifyingly beautiful swirls of silk-thread embroidery.

Flashing teeth and claw-like fingers haunted her dreams. Dead eyes on youthful warrior’s faces shone from wartorn battlefields, mountainsides saturated with magenta and littered with limp bodies, clad in tarnished armor and silk death shrouds. Above them all, Iyna, her greatskirts spread over the ravaged land, her bloodied hands and primal eyes aglow, head thrown back in War-Wail; terrifying, striking face contorted into a devil’s mask of fury and demonic glee.

Allura woke up screaming from these dreams, calling out for Allyar and Eollna, Welna and Allna, to protect her from their sister and daughter. Allura’s handmaidens would burst into the room, blades drawn from their delicate skirts, demanding to know of her safety, their eyes and markings glowing bright in the pitch-darkness of Allura’s bedchambers.

The handmaidens summoned her mother and father to attempt to coax her out of her hysterics. She flung herself into her father’s waiting arms, weeping about ash and bone and death and war, her tiny child’s body shaking with the sheer force of her sobs.

Great Iyna: summoner of Nilyar, fore-bringer of death and destruction, daughter of life and death’s all-powerful union. She had no place here.

Papa had all the tapestries covered, and Iyna’s shrine in the Castle locked to visitors.

Allura breathed with newfound relief once Iyna’s snarling face was obstructed with a dark shroud, but somewhere in the back of her mind, she was troubled with the implications of hiding a goddess from sight. 

“Won’t she be angry?” She had whispered, child’s voice unsteady and weak as she hid behind the folds of her father’s robes.

“No, my daughter,” Papa had replied, cupping her face in his hands, “We needn’t pray to her as the Ancients did. She will understand our fear.”

The mosaic of colored glass and precious metals on the floor of Iyna’s shrine gleamed much less without the otherworldly light of the silk-thread tapestries.

* * *

Every morning, Allura awoke to rose-stained skies and the scent of the juniberry flowers, their earthy, sweet smell magnified by the dew glittering on their fluorescent petals. In the deep valley between two great blue mountain peaks, the field of juniberries swayed gently in a the morning breeze. Dawn’s light cast hazy, pink-grey shapes onto the marble floor of her bedchambers, shining from her tall picture windows.

Allura sat in the tall, satiny grass, feeling the soft breeze run its invisible fingers through her hair and the folds in her nightgown. The sunrise’s weak light made the inside of her eyelids glow faintly rose, the rays of light warming her skin. Blades of grass around her whispered in the morning silence.

A deep huff of breath came just inches from her face.

Allura opened her eyes, and met the golden eyes of one of the free-roaming royal lions, ease and curiosity written into its eyes and relaxed stance. Its deep blue pelt glinted in the dawn. She gasped softly, and the lioness leaned forward to sniff at her hair, still a bit of a mess from a bad night’s sleep.

The lioness shut its eyes and stayed just inches from her, tall reeds blowing against its shining pelt. Allura felt her eyes close, and she leaned her forehead against the lion’s, feeling the silky fur on her skin. They sat in silence for a few seconds, feeling the other’s presence. Allura could hear the deep, slow heartbeat of the lion. It resonated with hers- in comparison, birdlike and flighty- echoing low in her chest.

“Allura?” Her mother called. Allura and the lion separated from each other, and when Allura opened her eyes once more, all that was left was a crushed clearing of grass and a trail through the tall blades, still swaying.

 _You must first gain their trust, dear child,_ she remembered her mother telling her, as a much younger child, _before the lions will accept you._

* * *

Twanging x’lia music echoed through the ballroom. Laughter and conversation filled the air, glowlights sending a warm, golden glow over the joyous people below.

Allura sulked by the window, her feet pulled up onto the window-sill and into the depths of her ballgown’s periwinkle skirts. She tugged on a long chunk of silver curls, scowling at the shining marble in front of her.

She hated this. Apparently Corir was _much too important_ to even pay attention to her now. It wasn’t like she was a baby (she was nearing her one hundred and thirty-second birthday*, after all, she was practically a grown lady) or annoying or cumbersome or a burden, but the moment he put on those guard apprentice robes he became this snooty, good-for-nothing-

“Why do you scowl so?” A girl’s voice said, the owner settling down next to her on the window-sill, a slight tremble of laughter in her next words. “You look as though great Allna has been blotted out by storm.”

Allura’s head whipped around to stare right into the navy blue eyes of a very pretty older girl. Her moon-pale face brought out the striking gold and teal of her markings, framed by coiffed coils of red-orange hair. Allura could tell there was a familial relation between her and Advisor Coran in the shape of her long nose and her wide, friendly smile. Allura immediately thought she had to be at least three hundred, but looking back on this memory decades later, Caria couldn’t have been older than two hundred and thirty at the time.

“Corir has left me to flounder on the fringes because he believes he is much too important for young friends,” Allura grumbled, pointing an accusing finger at the back of the green-and-gold-clad, red-headed boy in question. “Pretentious.”

The girl laughed delicately, an almost musical sound that made Allura flush with embarrassment. “Corir?” The girl asked.

Allura nodded glumly.

“My cousin, Corir?”

Allura frowned deeper.

“Oh, he wouldn’t.”

“He is, as we speak!” Allura protested, legs unfolding from her skirts, feet coming to rest on the floor.

“Well,” The girl said, dragging out the ‘e’. “I believe that he is so excited by his new position, that he simply wishes to put on a mature exterior for the Captain of the Guard. A misguided impulse, of course, but I assure you he will come to his senses.”

The girl took a sip of scarlet liquid from a golden cup that simply appeared to have come out of nowhere while Allura mulled this over.

“You really think so?” Allura muttered, kicking at the marble with her silk-slippered feet.

“I know so,” The girl patted Allura on the head, tapping the swirling gold-and-teal marks under her own eyes and on her own cheeks and forehead in turn, a gesture of goodwill. “If he doesn’t, tell him Caria sends her kindest, _kindest_ regards.”

Allura let a secret grin cross her face, then hesitated. “Caria? The librarian-priestess of Eollna?”

“That would be yours truly,” Caria said, with all the grace and sophistication a priestess would have. She tucked a red-orange coil behind her ear, drawing attention to the glinting gold of simplistic sun-pendants dangling from her earlobes. The mark of a priestess of Eollna.

Allura could feel her cheeks burn magenta as she stuttered for an apology. “I apologize for not using your titles, Priestess Caria, you deserve the utmost respect-”

“Oh, lighten up, _j’ia!_ ” The librarian-priestess exclaimed, throwing her head back in laughter. The sudden shift from her earlier, formal Altean to a very accented, informal regional dialect was so jarring that Allura was lost for words (and no, it’s not because a librarian-priestess, of all people, called the crown princess of Altea, in a sense, ‘squirt’) “I haven’t called you ‘princess’ this whole conversation! Titles, titles. It’s a party!”

Allura covered her burning face with two little hands, smothering a flustered smile.

Caria set her drink down on the window-sill, smoothing her white-and-gold robes as she rose. She offered one elegant, pale hand, which Allura gladly took.

“Let’s go dance,” Caria smiled, and then Allura was twirling out into the crowds of dancers, smiling wider than she had all night, her skirts spinning outward in a great shimmering disk of silver, blue, and white silk.

* * *

Allura was woken in the middle of the night by hushed, arguing voices outside her room. Down the corridor, her father’s reception room was lit. Harsh white light spilled into the darkness of the corridor, the sharp shadows of two figures crossing it every so often.

She peeked inside the doorway and saw her father and some young man sitting around the table, her father’s face thrown into deep, harsh shadow, poorly hidden contempt creasing his face. The young man sat across from him, halfway hunched over the tabletop. His youth was evident in the faint traces of childish roundness still present on his brown-skinned features. His markings were light violet, and unmistakably Altean, but the sclera of his eyes were a bright, bioluminescent yellow- Galra, without a doubt. The teeth exposed by a fearful grimace and the nails digging into the palms of his hands were sharp as knife blades. A head of short white hair and a long, straight nose made it even clearer to Allura this young man’s heritage, but the black-and-maroon Galran robes, paired with these Altean features, felt wrong to see. 

_“Please,_ Alfor, you know my father wishes for me to-” The man said, desperation twisting his handsome features into something ugly. 

“Do not call me Alfor, boy,” Father snapped, surging to his feet. The man’s mouth shut so quickly Allura could hear his fangs click.“Do not presume we are so familiar. You come to my home, begging for a coward’s way out when I know the slaughter of the Altean settlements on Hojj had everything to do with your battalions.”

“Do you wish for it to continue, then?” The man hissed.

Father whipped around so quickly that Allura jumped. “Are you threatening me?” Father growled, so much venom in his voice that Allura recoiled from the doorway.

“No! I simply-”

“Get out.”

“I have something to offer!”

“I do not care. Get out. Do not return here unless you wish for your head to be displayed on the end of a pikearm.”

The man choked on air, searching Father’s face for any hint of mercy, yellow eyes wide. “I- I thought, for Lady Honerva-”

A muscle twitched in Father’s jaw. His fists shook at his sides, betraying the explosive fury buried deep under his cold, reserved exterior. “Leave me.”

Something changed in the man’s face. The desperation in his eyes fell behind a layer of summoned ice, jaw setting and brows relaxing into an impassive, cool expression. He stood and gathered the heavy canvas cloak thrown onto the chair at his side, pulling it over broad shoulders.

The man bowed his head. He looked up from under a deadpan brow, piercing yellow gaze boring into her father’s. “As you wish, _Your Majesty.”_

He swept out of the room without further ado. His eyes caught Allura’s and for one terrifying moment, Allura stared right into remorseless black depths. Fury like she had never seen blazed like hellfire behind obsidian glass, so all-consuming and yet so controlled.

Allura was looking straight into the wrath of Iyna.

The man turned away and yanked the hood of his cloak over Galran-shaped ears, light violet starting to seep over the brown-skinned knuckles clutched tight in the thick canvas. He disappeared into the darkness of the corridor.

Father collapsed into his chair and cradled his head in his hands.

* * *

Father was wrong. 

Iyna, considered just a superstition since the downfall of the ancients millennia ago, had to be alive and well. And so, so, so angry.

Iyna’s eyes burned from hellfire plumes silhouetted against cold, dead mountains. Her silver tresses curled as trails of smoke above smoldering forests and cities rent to ash. Her greatskirts were the dark shroud of death and silence that hung over battle-ravaged hillsides, wrecked Altean and Galran warships scattered over black ground. Her bloodthirsty scream sang with the screech of metal and gunfire. Iyna ran her bloody claw down the chestplate of Guard Captain Corir, leeching the youth from his face and the life from his eyes.

Allura collapsed to her knees in front of Iyna’s shrine. She lifted her head to the heavens and took in the dusty fabric of a tapestry older than anything she had ever known.

“Please,” Allura whispered, trembling. Ash rained down onto the windows. The black shadow of the mountains, stark against a smoke-dark sky, towered far above her. “Please, if you’re there. Show us mercy.”

There was no response. Her flinty eyes stared down at Allura’s small figure, mouth pulled back and features contorted into a frightening snarl. Out of nowhere, alarms blared from the corridor beyond.

 _“Please,”_ She begged.

“Princess!” One of her handmaidens shouted, bursting into the shrine. She gripped Allura by the arm and pulled her to her feet. “We must go.”

The handmaiden yanked Allura out of the shrine, her gaze still affixed onto Iyna’s monstrous features.

Iyna took the throat of Altea in her hands and wrung it to damnation.

* * *

Allura awoke from death-sleep to a cold, dark castle. 

She heard echoes of death-wails and sounds of battle in her ears, her heartbeat ringing and thundering in her chest. Ice crawled up her insides.

The date couldn’t be right.

_STASIS TIME: 10,034 DECA-PHOEBS._

The date couldn’t be right.

She fell to her knees. She couldn’t breathe. Nilyar’s icy hand stroked down her hunched back.

She heard the five aliens yelling, their brash, unfamiliar voices muffled. Coran knelt at her side. His warm hand replaced Nilyar’s, and with it, a thread of light broke through the darkness.

His lilac eyes swam into view, and with them, understanding. Grief. Pain. Anger. Strength. Kindness. Love. 

She collapsed into his arms, heart crumbling to pieces.

* * *

The paladins were quite a ragtag bunch. 

The youngest one- the girl, Pidge- was a bit of a recluse. She loved being alone, and understood computers more than she did people. She could sit in some dark corner for hours on end, hooked up to a mainframe, fixing petty problems in the ten-thousand-six-hundred-deca-phoeb-old Castle systems, hardly stopping to eat or sleep. She was a genius, no two ways about it, and rather unapproachable. Her awkwardness was charming at best and distancing at worst. 

Even with these faults, Allura couldn’t deny the strange sisterly affection she was harboring towards the girl. She was competent, and smart, and tended to ramble on about things that made her brown eyes glow like bronze. Sometimes she would get a sad look in those bronze eyes when she stared out into the dark void of interstellar space - a sort of melancholy loneliness that Allura understood.

Hunk - an odd name, so odd in fact that when she first heard it she dug her finger in her ear in search of some ten-thousand deca-phoeb old earwax that had muffled the Castle’s translators - was warm and golden-hearted. He had such love and compassion for everyone he came across. On the flip side of Hunk’s character, however, was a wary, untrusting streak he harboured for people he deemed dangerous or suspicious. He was an unparalleled, engineering genius under that anxiety-prone exterior, and Allura admired him for that.

Keith was an enigma. He kept himself closed off from the rest of the paladins. With his hotheaded tendencies and impulsivity, Allura found herself between many a conflict between him and Lance, who had a special talent for egging him on and taking a spark to his temper. However, there were little moments that Allura realized he wasn’t all she had deduced him to be - just little flashes of a smile when Lance made a particularly untranslatable pun, or when Pidge would go off on a rambling tangent about whatever tech she was working on, or when Hunk laughed about something, or when Shiro clapped a hand on his shoulder and told him ‘Good job’. Even smaller moments still were the wistful, wanting looks he got on the sidelines when watching the other paladins grouped together, smiling and laughing, at diplomatic events.

Lance - yes, like the weapon - got onto Allura’s nerves. He was loud, never serious, needlessly flirtatious, cocky, arrogant, shallow, selfish, and desperate for attention- at least on the surface. As time went on, Allura became more and more aware of Lance’s depth of character. He was selfless, adaptable, valued morale, perceptive, observant, loving, and a talented sharpshooter. The breaking point for her was the night Lance sat next to her as she stared out into interstellar space, the empty hole in her heart where Altea had been swallowing her whole, and told her about ‘Cuba’, his mother, the ocean, and the soft rush of Earthen rain. He had tilted his head to the side, shining blue eyes meeting hers, and told her not to worry, not to cry. That earnest, caring look on a normally impish face sent a spike of recognition through her, green eyes and wavy, too-long red hair flickering for just a moment over his features.

That left Shiro, their not-so-fearless, fearless leader. He was kind, cool-headed, and an absolute perfectionist. He had a jovial sense of humor and a permanent laugh carried in his dark eyes when he was around the younger paladins, egging them on, jabbing in the way only an older brother can. He was the quintessential hero type - brave and commanding, mature and untouchable, but his caring nature led him to be much beloved by the rest of his team.

There was something to be said, however, about how he acted when he was alone. He tended to keep himself facing the entirety of the room. He glanced around at a room’s exits before he could relax. His reaction to being startled was paired with a distant look in his eyes and blanched skin, body weight shifting just enough that he could defend himself if need be.

He had a long temper, and a patience with the younger paladins that Allura admired. Even when tensions were running high, he was there was a cool head and a rallying cry for morale and ideas. He rarely, if ever, raised his voice.

They were a ragtag, mismatched bunch of people. Some unwitting child soldiers, some young veterans already in the face of their shared threat. 

They were a ragtag bunch, but they were her team, and Allura would make do.

* * *

Panicked refugees streamed into the castleship. Some were carried on the backs of others, injuries too great to support their own body weight, alien blood of a myriad of colors dripping onto the shining marble floors. The crowd swarmed Allura, a nonstop explosion of people assaulting her from all sides as she fought against the stream. Their screams of alarm and the unceasing buzz of mothers calling out for their children, of alien healers shouting for help, and of priestesses humming ancient songs for good luck blurred into an unbearable cacophony of sound, drowning out Allura’s voice as she shouted for her paladins.

She spotted Shiro’s and Coran’s heads over the throngs of people. Shiro was hunched over some unseen injury, the sweat on his face glistening in the emergency lights of the Castle. Coran chattered to him, face drawn and pale. Shiro shook his head in reply and slumped against the wall.

She gripped Coran’s shoulder with a trembling hand. He whipped around, eyes meeting hers, pupils mere pinpricks in their lilac. The High Altean came off her tongue smooth as royal silks, almost musical without the faint background ring of the Castle translators. “Where are the others?!”

Coran shook his head, stuttering for words.

 _[Allura!]_ She heard a voice shout from the entrance. Standing in the midst of the horde was Keith and Lance, working together for once, each smeared with the green/blue blood of the species around them.

Allura fought her way through the crowd until she was face-to-face with them. Only up close did she realize that Keith was leaning heavily on Lance, an arm thrown around his shoulders and his knees only half-supporting his own weight. Their bayards were held in hands shaking with adrenaline induced tremors. 

“Where are Hunk and Pidge?” She shouted, almost to the point of hysterics.

 _[Pidge is with Hunk, but I think something’s gone wrong. Last I heard was-]_ Lance’s artificially created Ryi dialect cut off as a shrieking battalion of Galra fighterships assaulted the particle barrier outside. 

_[Fuckin’ hell, I hope they all made it in,]_ Keith hissed through gritted teeth.

If at all possible, the alarms blaring overhead became even louder. It was at that moment that she heard Hunk’s frantic Hojjian Altean burst through the haze of noise just a few paces away.

Allura turned and was met with the sight she had seen so many times in her childhood nightmares- a warrior, face youthful, splattered with blood and limp in another’s arms. Pidge hung from Hunk’s hands, her head lolling around as he sprinted towards the crowd. The crowds parted in front of him, and Allura had a clear line of sight to the girl.

Her face was slack through the visor of her helmet. Great splashes and streaks of gory scarlet mixed with dirt and mud on her armor, the green and white turning rusty-brown with it. Her chest heaved with labored breaths. She looked too small in his arms.

_[There- there was this guard station, I didn’t see it soon enough and she-]_

Allura’s heartbeat thrashed in her ears as her vision tunneled to the injury in Pidge’s stomach, the unnatural pallor of her exposed skin, her limp hands hanging. Through the fog in her mind, Allura heard Lance let out a strangled, choking cry.

“Princess,” Coran seized a hold on her shoulders. “The Castle is in danger, we must go.”

“But-”

“I know,” He said, turning her away. “They are going to take care of her, but we need you to get us out of here, _now.”_

 

Allura allowed herself one last, long look at Pidge’s limp body, before forcing down the nausea and terror, and taking off like a shot to the control room of the castle.

Alteans bleed magenta. Galra bleed blue. 

Humans bleed red.

* * *

Months passed. The paladins grew before her very eyes.

They became more than just a team thrown together by convenient circumstances. Their awkward, shaky friendships strengthened into iron bonds of trust and care. Allura found herself willing to do anything to protect her friends- as that was inarguably what they were now- and was surprised to learn that they would do anything for her in return.

The incompetent fighters they had been disappeared. In their stead grew skilled, terrifying forces of nature - that is, when they ‘got their shit together’ (dear Pidge taught her that phrase! It had quite a concise feel, she had to admit!). They all gained new scars, physical or otherwise, and grew, physically or otherwise.

Lance became a fearsome sniper, a veritable bird of prey from where he perched during battle. His jovial attitude slipped away when he peered through a scope, blue eyes glinting from dark niches and balconies. He was death in the sky.

Drones fell in silent droves around Allura, wave after wave falling to some unseen assailant. She tracked her eyes up to a place high in the rafters. Flash after flash of light burst from the darkness, each time lighting up the hunched figure behind them. Her teammates around her fought the hordes as indistinct smears of blue light in the black.

A shot came inches from the top of her head, ruffling the curls with heat and wind. A screech of metal, Allura turned, and a decapitated sentry that had been approaching from behind fell to the floor.

Shiro ripped his glowing hand from the sparking torso of another sentry to grin rather ferociously up at the rafters. _[That’s our sharpshooter.]_

Keith, though already a skilled warrior in his own right, grew to be a berserker of a frightening caliber. His skill with the blade and flight impressed even Allura, who had been trained in combat since the tender age of seventy two. His envelopment in battle brought back vivid memories of Altean berserker-swordsmen, their eyes aflame with Iyna’s wrath, weapons tearing vast swaths of enemies down on the battlefield.

His blade glinted in the hellish light of explosions and wildfire, mouth pulled wide in a savage scream. His hair was a singed smoke cloud around a bloody, dirty face, eyes blazing as smouldering coals.

Hunk’s pacifistic nature grappled with being a warrior. His reluctance towards violence and skittishness would’ve been a death sentence to any other, lesser person, but he had a passion for justice and righteousness that could’ve rivalled even Father’s. He threw himself into protecting the unprotected and vulnerable of the universe, and being the warrior of the downtrodden. He was the harbinger of justice to a corrupted universe; a shine of light in the darkness of war.

His initial reluctance to be the Guardian of Earth fizzled to nothing. He had planets, systems, galaxies indebted to him and his compassion. 

Pidge, little more than a child, little more than a small girl, embraced her responsibilities as the paladin of the green lion. Her sadness and aching desire for her brother and father forged a steel-hearted warrior-woman, a soldier unwilling to let any suffer as she had at the hands of the Galra. Out of the five paladins, she was the perhaps most passionate about the rescue and liberation of refugees and prisoners. Though her motivations might have been selfish, she wouldn’t let a single refugee be left behind.

Her natural stealth and sharp mind made her a valuable asset to Voltron. When the other paladins went into bases on foot, she was in the ceilings and walls, breaking down security bit by bit, and before the Galra knew it, they had been completely overrun by four tiny humans and their millennia-old security systems destroyed by a teenage girl with a holoscreen.

Shiro had already been a warrior for much longer than the other four had been. He had seen horrors and experienced such terrible things already at the age of twenty-five- which Allura had calculated to be the human equivalent of three hundred decaphoebs- and had weathered so much more than the other paladins had yet to even dream of. 

If anything, his growth wasn’t of the battling kind, but rather of the tender, quiet growth of trust, kindness, and care. He became the caretaker of the younger paladins in a strange, stilted way, finally allowing himself to trust others and relax after a year of horrors. Allura had seen it more than had it told to her- but he grew to truly love and care for all of them. His growth didn’t have to be loud and bold like the others. The soft and the quiet suited him.

Even as her paladins grew beyond their humble beginnings, the grief she held in her heart festered. Dark, infected branches spread through her until she couldn’t breathe through the pain, the vines gripping her in a cold, heavy embrace. Allura took that pain and shoved it deep, deep down, so far that she was sure she could never feel again. The cold numb in the void of where it used to be spread only as far as she would let it.

* * *

Shiro disappeared.

The iron bonds of loyalty rusted.

* * *

Allura was thrust into the blue lion, the feeling of the blue lion’s quintessence washing over her an alien sensation after piloting the castle. Her ancient mind was unfamiliar- the calm patience, the cautiousness, the long temper, the indiscriminate acceptance, was so strange to Allura and so different from Allura herself that she doubted they could ever bond.

The cool rushing of waves brought Allura out of her stupor in the pilot’s seat. Oceanic storms roared through her, tearing through her fragile bones, hellish wind ripping the very air out of her lungs. Waves higher than any Altean mountain soared into skies black with smoke and storm. Great oceans and endless expanses of sea filled her vision. She trudged through the snowy swells of the tundra. Something she didn’t recognize -water, falling through the air - battered her face and cut it to the bone. Patient Easna guided the tides with her willowy hands.

Her father had been Red - fire, burning, blazes - but with this soul of godlike proportions, Guardian of Water, Allura could let herself sink into the ocean’s billion-year embrace with a feeling akin to peace.

* * *

The young alien Lance had rescued was of Hexian descent, much shorter than Allura had expected, and once she had been healed of her wounds, was very clingy. She latched onto Allura like some hulkrax youngling, with their barbed claws and severe separation anxiety.

Now, Allura had never in her 220 deca-phoebs of life had a younger sibling. She had grown to hate- well, not hate, but strongly dislike- children. Their high little voices grated on her nerves and their helplessness never appealed to her. 

So, when the little girl fell out of her healing pod and was immediately enthralled with Allura, practically latching onto her skirts, Allura was less than thrilled. She had things to do, dammit! 

Though, with the little girl trailing after her as she swept through the corridors, the Castle felt a little less empty. Her bright, owlish purple eyes and high-pitched giggle brought life to the dead silence, echoing off of high ceilings that had not seen such innocent joy in millennia.

Allura found herself in the empty ballroom one day. If she listened hard, she thought she could hear the faint echo of x’lia music and long-dead partygoers’ laughter. Caught in the sway of imagined music, Allura threw her arms out and spun in a great circle over the marble floors, stirring up dust as her skirts spun out into a rippling circle. She shut her eyes and imagined couples dancing around her, their mirages flickering, smiling, faces lost to the unforgiving sands of time.

The moment died. She shuddered to a halt in the middle of the room, and the mirages around her blew away.

She opened her eyes to the empty half-darkness. Her tag-along’s eyes glowed from the base of the staircase, face split with a grin bright with so much awe and reverence that Allura could _feel_ herself melt.

Allura strode over and seized Yihlel’s delicate hands in her own, pulling her to her feet and spinning her around. She burst into song, an old Altean ballad she had heard hundreds of times - more of a nursery rhyme, really. The song hadn’t been heard for millennia, but now, this ancient melody was being half-shouted to an empty ballroom, the only dancers in it being two young girls.

Yihlel couldn’t hold in her giggles as she and Allura performed some funny, unrefined parody of a ballroom dance. The echo of a child’s unrestrained laughter bounced off of walls that had not heard such a sound since the war.

There was fighting, there was war, there were horrors indescribable, but in this small bubble of happiness, Allura was content.

* * *

Allura watched the stars pass by. Great clouds of silver spangles and vibrant colour splotched the darkness beyond the window, starlight sprinkling across her face. She could see the reflection of her eyes and markings in the glass, their glow pronounced in the darkness of the Castle’s artificial night. The Castle’s ever-present engine hum broke the silence.

Yihlel sighed, her breath ghosting across Allura’s legs, where her head rested.

[Princess?]

Allura heard the telltale click of the translators behind her artificial Altean.

“Yes?”

[Why do you still call yourself Princess?]

Allura paused at that question. She had asked herself that, verbatim, more times than she could count. She took in the endless stars outside, feeling the hollow, lonely ache in her chest grow stronger until she could hardly bear it. Space was so empty.

“I…” She whispered. “If I am still Princess Allura, then Altea is not gone, and I am still the bright-eyed child of deca-phoebs past. It lessens the hurt.”

Yihlel hummed in reply. She curled the silk of Allura’s skirts into her tiny, clawed hands.

Allura huffed a soft, bitter laugh. “I’m still a princess of no kingdom. And don’t I know it. Every morning I wake up to empty halls and another day of perils.”

Yihlel frowned. [A princess of no kingdom?]

Allura stroked Yihlel’s head absently. “Yes, what of it?”

[You are wrong.]

She raised an eyebrow. “Am I?”

Yihlel nodded. [Your kingdom is out there. The stars. Every ally you make is another subject. I would say more than subjects, as you are their Queen by choice.]

Allura didn’t reply. She stared out into the ever-changing void of interstellar space, letting that little girl’s wise words wash over her like high tide. Before long, Yihlel’s breaths slowed to a crawl, and she was deadweight on Allura’s lap.

Lance came by much later, ocean-blue eyes filled with earnestness and care, a smile breaking across his face like the rising sun.

* * *

Allura threw herself into her work. The grief she had shoved down deep inside was eating away at her insides like a disease, the dark, hollow ache turning her very blood to sludge, and she dealt with it the only way she knew how- bottling it up until she burst.

Nothing could have prepared her for the crushing loneliness and isolation of being The Only. The Only girl of Altean descent. The Only girl who remembered what Altean sunsets looked like. The Only girl who knew the melody of the ancient lullaby her mother would sing to her at bedtime, the words now lost to the sands of time. She was The Only who knew the feel of a librarian-priestess’ robes, or had run her hands over the embroidery. She was The Only who had heard a War-Wail with her own ears. The clawing, ripping pain of isolation speared through her chest, and she was falling to her knees, her breath ice in her throat. 

Coran scooped her up in his arms and held her close. She could feel the thundering of his twin hearts in his chest, deep and low and steady.

“Allura,” He said, his voice a beacon to a starsailor on stormy skies, “Allura, you must let yourself _mourn._ ”

She shattered.

* * *

_“Papa,” Allura giggled, grasping at the air with pudgy child’s hands. Her papa’s face popped into view, and with it, a blinding smile. He scooped her up from where she stood on the floor. She shrieked with delight as he spun her around in a dizzy circle, whooping with laughter._

_“Alfor, be careful,” A voice behind him warned, little venom in their tone. Allura looked up to see-_

_“Mama!” She started to reach out for her mother’s embrace, but hesitated. Why did Mama look so weird?_

_“Pah, I needn’t be careful! To think - you believe a child of mine would be so fragile? Frankly, I’m insulted,” Papa said, but he was smiling, so Allura supposed he wasn’t really mad._

_“Mama, you look strange.”_

_She had a weird circlet on her head, its golden concentric rings encrusted with jewels. Beads ran down the front of Mama’s torso, and disappeared into her cloud of silver hair, where they connected to the band of the circlet. Complex markings -painted on in bright rose-coloured pigment - furled their way around her face and disappeared under her collar. A fanciful dress Allura had never seen before floated around her in an elegant splay of white and indigo Altean silk. From her ears dangled an abundance of gems and gold._

_Papa let out a loud bark of laughter that Allura pointedly ignored in favour of staring at her mother with eyes bigger than a weblum’s yulschtrix._

_“Do you remember your friend L’tajh?”_

_Oh, did she! He was purple and fuzzy and had big, fluffy ears and he talked kind of funny. Or maybe she heard him kind of funny? There was a lot of buzzing. They climbed up the mountainside together before one of the kitties picked them up by the scruff of their robes and carted them down to their mothers’ arms._

_“Well, I am meeting his mama and papa today for some very important business, so I must look my very best,” Mama smiled, brushing Allura’s cheek markings with her thumb._

_Allura frowned at that, reaching up to rub the central precious stone on her mother’s circlet, her reflection refracted in its aquamarine depths tenfold. The crown looked much too heavy and much too gaudy to be counted as ‘looking your very best’, in Allura’s not-so-humble opinion._

_“Now, **this** ,” Her mother whispered, taking Allura’s hands in her own to thread through the strings of beads on her shoulders. “This is the crown of your ancestors. Hundreds of Queens have worn it before me, and when the time comes, you will too.”_

_Allura scrunched her nose. “I don’t like it. I’ll keep my tiara.”_

_Papa let out a loud snort that was very unbecoming of the King of Altea. Mama took it in a stride, patting Allura on the head and smiling the subtle sort of smile that didn’t show on her mouth, but made her eyes glitter._

_“Oh, my bright-eyed Sun and Stars,” She said, “My little Allura, someday this will mark you as the Great Celestial, leader of our people.”_

_“May Allyar forbid it be her warhelm,” Papa muttered, looking at the glowing eyes of his daughter._

_“That is what we’re trying to prevent here, Alfor.” She muttered back, her voice noticeably cooler in tone._

_“Mama, somebody’s here,” Allura said, pointing over her mother’s shoulder at the handmaiden standing in the doorway._

_The handmaiden bowed, her purple curls falling over the shoulders of her robes. “Queen Welna, the commander and the L’Tur noblewoman await you.”_

_Mama separated from her King and her daughter, pressing a lingering kiss to Allura’s forehead. She swept around, her skirts spinning in a quite striking display of their girth, and strode out of the room with the handmaiden._

_“Handmaiden Pili, you needn’t call me Welna. I’ve told you that Lostisia is fine.”_

_“Oh, but, your Majesty, it just feels wrong to do so.”_

_Their voices faded as they drew further away._

_Papa tucked an errant curl behind the sharp curve of Allura’s ear. “You will be an extraordinary Queen.”_

_“I will?”_

_“I know so.”_

_“May my Queen-name be ‘Allyar’, then?”_

_“Sun and moons,” Her father smiled, perhaps a little sadly. “That’s quite a title to take on, don’t you agree?”_

_“No! If life flourishes under me, then I am Allyar!”_

_“Hmm…” Her father feigned intense thought. “Perhaps….Queen Allura-Kigga?”_

_“Crops are boring,”_

_“Queen Allura-Iyatis?”_

_“Kissing is gross,”_

_“Queen….Allura-Cexzna?”_

_Allura promptly screeched and clawed at her father’s arms to be let down. “No! No! No!”_

_“And why not?” He grinned, clamping his arms around her and refusing to let go. “Oh, Great-Celestial Allura-Cexzna, leader of our people, under whom bad comedians, drunkards, and mimes flourish-”_

_“NO!”_

_He dug his fingers into her sides and tickled her mercilessly. She squealed and ripped herself out of his grip like a maddened glüirl-crawler, and the great King of Altea, commander of armies, red paladin of Voltron, began to chase his young daughter around their informal sitting-room, crowing “I’m going to get you!”._

_Coran, his loyal advisor, chose that moment to speak up from the doorway, where he had been watching unbeknownst to the pair inside._

_“I’ve always been partial to Allura-Allna, myself. Really rolls off the tongue!”_

_The young princess yelped with glee at the sight of Coran, and ran to his waiting arms._

_Her father hung back for a little bit._

_Hm. She was getting tall._

* * *

Allura had forgotten how truly beautiful Altean stitchwork was.

She traced elegant swirls of gold and drops of blue on the hem of the skirt in her hands, the great curling designs stretching up into the white skirts. The white was more off-grey now, she supposed, after being in a dusty cupboard for ten millennia.

Coran chattered on in the background about something that Allura and Pidge were only half-listening to. Pidge was buried alive under a pile of old garments and bloomers and had given up crowing for help several minutes ago. She had resigned herself to death via closet organization.

“I remember it like it was yesterday! Oh, dear me, the spikes on that armor, it was the most glorious thing you would ever see- except for the void creatures in the Alsk system, of course, but-”

Coran stopped speaking. The sudden silence brought Allura out of her pensive stupor much more efficiently than a shout would have.

“What is wrong?”

“You found it,” Coran said, dropping the blue L’Tur headscarf in his hands, massive holes torn in it for the L’Tur headridges. 

Allura turned towards the light to get a better look at the dress. It wasn’t a grand thing on its own, really, but if they added the necessary petticoats, and perhaps a cape, it could pass for a low-ranking noblewoman’s day-dress.

“What is it?”

“Your mother was coronated in that dress. Those under-skirts.”

Pidge made an interested noise from the pile of laundry.

“In this?” Allura said, raising an eyebrow. “It is so...plain.”

“Your mother wasn’t one for grandeur,” Coran said, patting the dust from the skirts, grey clouds of it coming off and drifting into Allura’s face. “In fact, her handmaidens fought her tooth and nail to keep her from being coronated in a pair of breeches. She was much younger then.”

Allura giggled at that. “Where is the rest of it?”

“Hm,” Coran said, casting a look around. His eyes fell on a mess of rosy pink, midnight-blue, and white fabric, the material almost translucent. “There’s the topskirt. I can’t imagine the petticoats have survived the deca-phoebs.”

Pidge’s little pale hand burst from the laundry, sending a pair of green bloomers flying. Clutched in her knuckles was a golden sun-pendant, attached to a long expanse of night-blue fabric. Her voice was muffled. _[Is this the cape that goes with it?]_

Allura reached up to undo the simple golden button at her throat. Her cape fell to the ground. The midnight-blue cape Pidge had retrieved swept over her shoulders, the precious gems sewn into the thick, midnight-blue sea of fabric glittering in the glowlights.

“It’s beautiful,” She whispered, tugging at the golden edge of it. She had forgotten that the royal seamstresses had quite a flair for the dramatic. “Is it meant to be the night sky?”

“Her cel-fe tizk was Welna, after all.”

 _[Her what now?]_ Pidge asked. Allura could hear the raised eyebrow in her voice.

“Altean stitchwork was beautiful,” Allura smiled, ignoring Pidge.

Coran tugged a pair of red ribbons from the depths of a drawer, nearly falling over with the force of his yank. “We’ve still stored dozens of Altean tapestries down in the dungeons.”

She shuddered, drawing the folds of the cloak tighter over her shoulders. “Even Iyna?”

Coran flung himself into the seemingly endless depths of the drawer, tossing out garment after garment over his shoulders. “Yes, of course. That piece was a masterpiece! That took seven hundred spools of Hojjian gold-thread to complete. I’ll bet that was a nightmare to organize-”

“She scared me, when I was younger. Iyna.” Allura spun in a circle, watching the gems on her floor-length cloak glitter as it fluttered around her. “I’m not sure I would want to see her again, if even to relive Altean craftsmanship.” 

“And why’s that?”

“Why is what?”

“Why were you afraid of her?”

“You witnessed that tapestry!” Allura cried, tugging on her hair. “She looked like she was going to eat me!”

“There was no reason to be afraid. Did no one ever tell you the story of Iyatis?”

Allura stopped her grimacing. The faint echo of some voice called across a sea of years, rhythmic and calming, washing over her like sunlight.

“Perhaps,” She muttered, knitting her eyebrows together in an effort to call back the memory of a storyteller.

 _[She was the Altean goddess of love, wasn’t she?]_ Pidge squeaked.

 _That was putting it lightly,_ Allura wondered, letting a ancient story wash over her.

_Great Iyna, destroyer of worlds and herald of bloodshed, cared for no other more than the Altean warrior Neajti. Neajti was a glorious fighter, and brought many victories to their kingdom, and so it was only natural the great goddess of War would spark interest._

_Neajti was impulsive, and Neajti was stubborn. They strode into battle with caution thrown to the wind, screaming War-Wails bone-chilling enough to send armies running._

_Great Iyna was enamoured. But Love, however twisted it was, was unbecoming of a war-goddess, and Nilyar, the Server of Justice, had to keep order in line._

_Neajti was speared by Death._

_Great Iyna fell to her knees on her own battlefield, echoing War-Wail screaming through the hills. She clutched her lover’s body to her own, her demon-eyes extinguished, Nilyar’s bloodshed staining the untouchable berserker pink._

_‘Please,’ begged Great Iyna, her voice a thousand knives and a thousand wounds, ‘Take this from me. If this is love, I do not want it.’_

_Nilyar was just, and Nilyar was kind. She took pity on her sister-daughter, and split Love from Iyna’s very essence. In Nilyar’s stead, Iyatis, her hair floating in the howling storm winds, rose-coloured robes flapping in the icy air. Her glowing face was haloed by smoke-clouds cast orange by flame. Iyna reached out, and great Iyatis took her hands._

_They wept together for Neajti, and young warriors lost too soon, and every unjust death in battle. Iyna and Iyatis’ tears ran together to form the River Alcha, where their wails can still be heard below the current._

_‘Dear Iyatis,’ said Iyna, ‘Do you love me?’_

_‘Yes, my sister, I do.’_

_‘Take this pain from me, and I shall go on.’_

_Iyatis did so. Iyna stood, seized the sword from Neajti’s sheath, and sheared the flowing silver curls from her head._

_Iyna did not return. Iyatis gathered Neajti in her arms and wailed a Death-Wail that echoed off the mountain range, high and shrill, ripping through the air and ears of the surrounding warriors. The warriors became stone, and with them, Neajti melted into the earth, one with Allyar again._

_Iyatis would love the universe as she had once loved Neajti._

Allura started from her reverie.

“Princess?” Coran said, his head poking from the drawer he was buried shoulder-deep in.

“The floor mosaic in Iyna’s shrine, was it Iyatis cradling Neajti?”

“Why, yes, but-”

 _[You mean the place with that big black shroud over one wall?]_ Pidge piped up.

She remembered the mosaic. She had walked over that mosaic for hundreds of deca-phoebs. There was something symbolic, somehow, in the juxtaposition of war and love. Before she knew it, she had swept out of the room and was striding towards Iyna’s shrine on autopilot. Coran and Pidge called after her, no doubt concerned, but their cries fell on deaf ears.

Allura tracked a path straight into Iyna’s shrine. With one yank, the black shroud that had hung over Iyna for thousands of fell to the floor. The room’s glow brightened with the otherworldly light of the uncovered tapestry.

Allura gazed upon Iyna’s face for the first time in millennia.

Iyna looked the same as always, but instead of fear, Allura looked upon her with awe. This great warrior, this warrior-woman, was worshipped by a dead people. Her dead people. Though her existence might be the folly of superstition and tradition, she was older than Allura could ever comprehend. War and bloodshed was universal and never-ending.

Iyatis’ prismatic face wailed from the mosaic floor. Her white hair curled over the limp body of Neajti, their armor detailed in blue gemstone and planes of silver.

War and fighting is universal, but without love, and without hope, the universe crumbles.

Allura fell to her knees between the two women.

“Please,” She whispered, her mother’s coronation cape drooping down her shoulders. “Guide me to what I must be.”

_“Sun and Stars, my Great Celestial, my Queen, guide us to victory.”_

Allura reached up and touched each of her cheek markings in turn.

“I will.”

* * *

Months passed. Her warriors changed.

The childlike innocence they had held until the very end blinked out. In its stead, a sense of duty and cold maturity set their roots. Their youthful faces became scarred and battleworn, their eyes too old to belong to them.

Lance was almost unrecognizable as the flirty, goofy jokester that had entered the castle a deca-phoeb ago. The impish glint in his eye gave way to fierce resolve and a warrior’s competence. Steel hardened shining blue eyes as he brought the scope of the black bayard up to his eye, the thin scar on his browbone wrinkling with his concentration. 

Keith, though she hadn’t seen much of him since he had left them, was almost a shadow of his former self. His skin was sallow from lack of sun, his jaw and temple marred with scars, his knuckles bruised and bloodied at all times. His eyes never went without smudges of purple-black exhaustion underneath.

Hunk was a diplomatic force to be feared. His presence, somehow comforting and intimidating at the same time, was a priceless resource on unallied planets. Since she had chosen Hunk to be her diplomatic companion and trained him to be so, their number of allies jumped threefold. To put it lightly, he was a genius. He knew just what to say, when, and how. His wary streak proved itself time and time again, once saving Allura’s life.

Pidge grew into sharp eyes and sharp grins. Her selfless love towards her friends began shine like moonlight through the cracks in her snide, witty armor. Rather than crumble under the pressure of being a fighter at such a young age, Pidge took it and made it the source of her strength. She had a sense of justice that was infallible, and like her friend Hunk, she brought it upon herself to serve it. Even with all of Pidge’s establishing wariness towards Allura and preference towards interacting with computers, Allura wouldn’t forget when Pidge let a small smile cross her face and told Allura to please, call me Katie.

Her paladins held the weight of the universe on their shoulders. While she held onto the title of princess, in some justified impulse to keep a part of her childhood and past with her, her paladins forsake their youth for their duty. Her paladins had sacrificed their home, their innocence, and their safety for her. Why does she still cling to ‘princess’?

She missed Altea.

She missed the lions wandering the mountainsides, the cool rush of dawn wind, Altean sunset, juniberries, her father, her mother, her childhood, all of Altea, her friends, Corir, Caria, her handmaidens, the innate understanding of a shared culture, her father, her mother, her childhood, her father, her childhood-

Allura had a decision to make.

Altea would live on in her memory.

Perhaps “Princess Allura” should not.

* * *

Generations ago, the Prince or Princess of Altea would be surrounded by swarms of handmaidens on their coronation day. Princess Allura, however, sat in her completely empty bedchambers.

Instead of an ornate dress, her armor carved her silhouette into hard, harsh edges. Her mother’s coronation cape flowed to the floor, hanging off her shoulders in a deep, velvety drape. Delicate golden chains and hoops hung from her ears. Her face wasn’t decorated in complex blue designs. Rather, five simple magenta dots - one on the chin, two on each side of her jaw - stood out from her skin.

She stared at her reflection in the mirror.

Something about it was unfamiliar. Maybe it was the newly fiery, regal look in her eyes. Or maybe it was the proud lift of her chin. Maybe it was the black Hexian earring, its dullness juxtaposed against the opulent gold in her ears.

Her bedchambers were silent.

She looped a curl of white hair through her fingers, frowning at it.

In a fit of impulsivity, she rooted around in her drawers, seized a ceremonial dagger from its depths, and brought it the curl in her fingers. With one jerk, a waist-length curl fell to the ground.

Allura paused. She brought a hand up to feel at the curling ends of her hair, running her fingers over the coil until it stopped much too suddenly, slightly under her chin. 

Her shock lasted only moments. She brought the knife to her hair again and again, the only sound in the air the sawing crunch of a knifeblade through strands. Her floor was soon covered in a halo of thick white hair, her head much lighter, and her reflection even more unfamiliar than it was before.

She smiled a thin, sharp thing of a smile and stood. She swept her cloak around her and strode out of the room.

* * *

In Altea, she would be flanked by her handmaidens, their blades drawn and robes rippling as they walked, her advisors, her personal guard, and a librarian-priestess of Eollna as she walked down to her coronation.

She marched down the corridor alone.

The bridge was filled screen-to-screen with allied leaders, all gazing down her as she entered. Her paladins lined the center platform, shoulders squared, a display of Voltron’s strength to their allies.

They turned at the sound of her footsteps. Lance’s face brightened at the sight of her. Pidge’s hand flew up to the back of her head to feel at the short strands there, her eyes focused on the curls bouncing around Allura’s chin. Hunk and Keith merely glanced at her, but she could see how their postures relaxed as she entered, the two boys exchanging a knowing glance between them.

“Kneel,” said one of leaders, his voice booming through the control room. Every alien on screen bowed their head as she approached, her sabatons clicking against the floor.

“Rise.” She commanded. Her voice echoed through the room, louder and more authoritative than it had ever been.

Allura looked between every leader on screen, Marmorites and Hexians, Queen Iram of Quatri and Hojjians, Amphibi and P’lcok, Fyaryans and Y’a, all equals, the shadow of starlight shining through the comm-screens. “Assembled leaders, I am Princess Allura of...the Allied Galaxies.”

A slight murmur went through the Hexian section at her use, or rather un-use, of “Altea”.

“In the interest of you and the Allied Galaxies I have chosen to take on the mantle of Queen. It is with the aid of your forces and your sacrifices until this point that has allowed the Voltron Coalition to survive. I thank you for this, and your presence today.”

She made deliberate eye contact with each leader, and knelt. 

“Princess Allura,” Coran began, “In accordance with tradition, you will be blessed by a priestess of Welna, Yivana, Ysna, Hiona, and Easna.”

She had a moment of bewilderment before Pidge stepped forward and reached for her hands.

Eyes glowing like bronze looked right into blue and tiny, gloved hands seized hers.

 _[I, paladin of Yivana, ask you to protect the spirit of the forest,]_ Pidge smiled, camaraderie glowing out of her face. Her words had a slightly rehearsed air. _[The forest is the heartbeat of all Altea, and even in the stars do roots form. Through her branches runs the spirit of life. To be leader is to protect the charge of Allyar and Yivana.]_

_[Do you vow to protect Life to the best of your ability?]_

Allura squeezed Pidge’s hands, and stated: “I vow it.”

There was a flash of something in the back of her mind- a slow, creeping patience, curious and nurturing at the same time - and a low, deep lion’s growl. As she stared into Pidge’s eyes, green bloomed in her irises where only bronze had been before. She allowed herself one more moment to stare.

Pidge reached up and brushed both of her cheek markings with her thumbs. _[I, Yivana- paladin of Yivana, give you the blessing of the Forest.]_

Pidge let go, and the green disappeared. Allura wondered if it had been there in the first place.

Hunk grasped her hands next. He seemed much more nervous than Pidge had been.

_[I, paladin of Ysna, ask you to protect the soul of earth,]_ Hunk recited. He glanced off at Coran for a moment, steeled himself, and met her eyes. _[Earth is the foundation of all planets. Though greed clouds many a being’s judgement, rock and dirt are as valuable as gold, as they are on which life forms. To be leader is to accept your humble place in this universe, as Ysna does ask.]_

_[Do you vow to scorn hubris, and see yourself as a tiny star in a sea of billions?]_

Allura brushed her thumbs over Hunk’s knuckles. “I vow it.”

A rush of care and love came soon after. Golden bursts of color splotched across her vision, the colors brightening and warping into a kaleidoscope, or a mosaic, moving and rippling like water.

Hunk tapped her cheek markings. _[I, paladin of Ysna, give you the blessing of Earth.]_

Hunk left as soon as he came. 

In the place of Pidge’s small hands and Hunk’s wide, gentle palms, two hands roughly snatched her own. Allura knew immediately it was Keith.

 _[I, paladin of Hiona, ask you to protect the essence of fire,]_ Came the gravelly baritone. _[Fire is a destructive beauty. It burns through all that it comes across with unbridled passion and fury. Passion is a valuable trait in any leader, and you must have it to guide with love and caring. To be leader is to perform your duties with zeal and selflessness, as Hiona guides her flames.]_

_[Do you vow to love your people as fire burns through all things, and swear to be a passionate, persevering leader?]_

Allura looked right into fiery black eyes and nodded, saying with utmost conviction: “I vow it.”

Wild pride and burning happiness ripped through her mind, a low roar shaking her. Tongues of flame- or what felt like it- licked the sides of her cape and armor, blazing petals blooming in the stars.

Twin thumbs rubbed against her face, halfway missing her markings. _[I, paladin of Hiona, give you the blessing of fire.]_

There was no paladin of Easna to come after Keith. She began to feel a tug at her consciousness. A familiar presence was urging her to say something-anything-

“I, paladin of Easna, ask myself to protect the heart of water,” Allura said. The words spilled out of her mouth without any thought, an endless stream of verse and vow. “Water is slow and patient. It flows the most efficient course, and waits thousands of years to whittle a boulder to nothing. To be leader is to practice great patience, and guide my people with a wise heart.”

“I vow to allow wisdom to guide my actions, and in times of strife, let patience be the light in the dark.”

A rush of waves, the roar of storm-

“I, Easna, give myself the blessing of water.”

The stream of words cut off so suddenly that Allura choked on air.

Fingers laced through hers, and when she looked up, of course she was met with a pair of perpetually grinning blue eyes. He was fighting hard to keep a smile down- whether he was uncomfortable, proud, or just being Lance, she didn’t know. Unlike the others, once she met his eyes, Lance fell to his knees in front of her.

 _[I, paladin of Welna and guardian of Allyar, ask you to protect the magic that runs in the veins of the universe,]_ Lance murmured, his eyes boring into hers. _[Like Welna, the stars will serve as your guide through great peril and battle. Never should you shy away from doing what is right. Goodness and morality must flourish under your reign. To be leader is to be kind and courageous, and allow the blood of life flow through Altea.]_

_[Do you vow to maintain balance and goodness in the universe, and never cower from challenge or difficulty?]_

“I vow it.”

The stars outside grew brighter. She could see the faint glow around each and every living being in the room, their heartbeats pulsing colorful splotches in the air, a lion’s roar shaking her to the very bone-

_[Then I, paladin of Welna and guardian of Allyar, give you the blessing of sky and magic.]_

A rush of euphoria and brightness, and Allura’s markings were stretching ever-so-slightly down her cheeks. Her eyes exploded into transcendent light, their blue casting radiance everywhere. Gentle hands separated her circlet from her head. In its place, she was given her mother’s circlet, worn for the first time in millennia, once a symbol of Altean grandeur, now a warhelm on a girl’s head.

_Oh, my bright-eyed Sun and Stars, My little Allura, someday this crown will mark you as the Great Celestial, leader of our people._

And it was so.

Hands found hers and she was getting to her feet, squaring her shoulders, and tipping her chin high. Her hair flowed in an unfelt breeze, eyes and markings glowing with the gems and floating beads on her circlet. She could feel power and grace blaze through her body with every pulse of luminescence, echoes of lion roars and ancient souls humming through her very skin.

“Queen Allura Iyna-Iyatis of the Allied Galaxies.”

The last Queen of Altea.

She would give them a mourning song.

**Author's Note:**

> * the date conversion for alteans is 12 human years for their, physical, one. Allura is about six in the first scene, nine in the second, eleven in the third, fifteen in the fourth, and seventeen/eighteen in the fifth. The rest is just canon
> 
> *reference for Altean War-Wail : check out the witcher 3 soundtrack. There’s a lot of warscreams in there- especially in the tracks ‘silver for monsters’, ‘hunt or be hunted’, and ‘eyes of the wolf’. Imagine something like that, but much, much more terrifying, and with the same vaguely musical quality. This is something that cut over the sounds of ancient Altean battles and quite literally scared off several armies in the past. It’s some scary shit, dude
> 
> hi all!!! this is the second part to battleborne. i hope you enjoyed!! 
> 
> many thanks to my beta reader al, the garbagé i kno and lof, you wonderful chaos entity
> 
> also allura: i love you, biiiiiitch. i ain't EVER gonna stop lovin you.  
> biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitch.
> 
> i hope i did her justice! i don't have as good a grip on allura's personality as i do lance's so.... yeah


End file.
